The funding marks SBI Investment’s first investment in a Taiwanese, AI-focused company and will give SBI Group a minority stake in Gorilla Technology. Gorilla plans to use the investment to enhance their AI and video analytics algorithms for the financial tech space, work toward cementing a worldwide sales and marketing presence, as well as expand the company footprint in Japanese markets.

Tomoyuki Nii, Executive Officer of SBI Investment said, “SBI’s investment follows the establishment of SBI AI & Blockchain Fund (SBI A&B Fund) earlier this year. The SBI Group is actively involved in introducing AI solutions to financial institutions in Japan, and strongly believes in the future of this field.”

Gorilla Technology approached SBI Group based on its work creating viable solutions for Edge AI, where edge devices process priority AI algorithms locally, and allow real-time intelligent results, while cloud and server-based AI is coordinated over a smart and optimized network connection. Based on its future AI vision, Gorilla was also recently certified on Intel’s OpenVINO toolkit, which the company has currently utilized successfully to further improve computer vision and video analytics in the manufacturing, retail, healthcare and transportation industries.

“Financial companies worldwide have started tapping on the video analytics and facial recognition door as cybersecurity threats continue to grow and expand in 2019. We are committed to creating new avenues of success and security for the FinTech markets, and we strongly believe the next natural step is to expand Edge AI, computer vision and Data as a Service,” said Dr. Spincer Koh, CEO of Gorilla Technology. “SBI Group’s investment into our company and vision strengthens our position as an Edge AI leader. It’s a key driver toward our goals in video analytics technology, and keeps Gorilla positioned at the forefront of video AI technology. We can’t wait to see what the future holds.”

Gorilla Technology successfully completed A, B and C investment rounds in 2007, 2009 and 2015, respectively, by tapping EMC for A and B rounds, while Telstra Ventures and Acer were the main C round investors. Gorilla develops its own AI and video analytic platforms from its research and development facility in Taiwan, and in June this year, Intel announced Gorilla as the first certified video analytic solution on Intel’s OpenVINO IoT toolkit. Gorilla will continue to deepen their relationships with SBI Group, Intel and other partners to bring Edge AI and computer vision to the next level in system integration.